>I think I fried my first PIC last night.
>
>It was siting in a PCB running normally, but later I noticed a test LED
>was only half lit.
>
>I went to touch the 16F873 after removing power and heard a 'Tssst'
>sound as the Microchip logo got branded into the tip of my finger. I'd
>swear it was so hot, I could have lit a match off it.
>
>The bootloader failed to work after that, so I assumed it was dead, but
>after cooling off it worked again. For about 3 minutes, the PCB was
>ticking like chrome exaust pipes cooling off. Unfortunately, the PIC
>seems to run a bit warm now, so I don't think I'd trust it for work
>anymore, especially not for development when you don't need a cranky
>chip.
>
>The problem: A floating test lead with 12VDC wiggled it's way over to a
>VCC test pin and made contact.

I have seen the bond wires on a JW pic GLOW , and another which melted
itself into a plastic prototyping board, and both times had the chip
still work afterwards. This sort of thing gives a lot of confidence in
the PICs robustness, although not recommended in production!